Father Protests Anne Pollard's Transfer To Minnesota Hospital

January 23, 1989|by CHERYL WENNER, The Morning Call

The father of former Bethlehem resident Anne Pollard, the wife of a former naval intelligence analyst who admitted spying for Israel, claims his daughter was transferred suddenly to a federal medical center in Minnesota last Saturday because she had become eligible for a medical furlough, a chance to see outside specialists.

His voice breaking, a frustrated Bernard Henderson said Friday that he intends to mount a campaign asking President Bush to remove J. Michael Quinlan, director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, who he believes is responsible for ordering his daughter's transfer to the Rochester Medical Center. Quinlan could not be reached for comment.

"But the real tragedy is that it probably won't help my daughter. Will petitions and letters help her get medical treatment tomorrow? No, they won't. I'm worried about my daughter, who has to go through this day by day. . . . What the hell can I do?"

Since 1983, Mrs. Pollard has been diagnosed with several different disorders of the gastrointestinal tract, including biliary dyskinesia, a condition of abnormal movement and pressures in the common bile duct. Her symptoms include lesions and infections, distorted vision, abdominal pain, migraine headaches, cramping, anemia, low-grade fever and nausea.

She collapsed last weekend in a bathroom at the Danbury Camp, a minimum- security prison in Danbury, Conn., where she is serving two concurrent five-year sentences for being "an accessory after the fact" in her husband's operation.

After she collapsed, she was taken to a hospital in Danbury where a gastrointestinal specialist, Dr. Jeffrey Lichtenstein, determined she was suffering from malnutrition and dehydration brought about by her chronic stomach illness. She remained in the Danbury hospital, under Lichtenstein's care, until Jan. 14, when she was taken to the Rochester Medical Center.

Henderson said he wishes his daughter had been kept under Lichtenstein's care. "After four months at Danbury, she was finally seeing a specialist," he said. He says he was told she was transferred to Rochester after being released from the Danbury hospital, "which isn't true," and for further medical treatment, "which also isn't true." Rochester officials could not be reached for comment.

Henderson believes his daughter may have been transferred to Rochester because, on Jan. 11, the day she collapsed, she had become eligible for community custody and a medical furlough.

"However," he claims, "because she was transferred to another institution, she is no longer eligible - and this appears to be the primary reason Washington ordered her transfer."

Meanwhile, former Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald Abrams, one of Mrs. Pollard's attorneys, has asked Attorney General Dick Thornburgh to investigate possible violations of federal kidnapping, assault and civil rights laws in the treatment of Mrs. Pollard. Henderson says Abrams, who visited Mrs. Pollard in Rochester on Thursday, believes her life is in danger.

After a phone conversation with his daughter last week, Henderson claimed his daughter was told by the prison physician, Dr. Martha Grogan, that she would receive no medical treatment without Grogan's approval and that only Grogan would be allowed to examine her.

Last Monday, Abrams told Quinlan that Mrs. Pollard had been treated by Grogan at Rochester on two previous occasions "without any benefit whatsoever."

According to Henderson, Mrs. Pollard has asked prison officials and her attorneys to take action to keep Grogan away from her. Meanwhile, he says, Grogan has ordered a round-the-clock "suicide watch" to be placed on Mrs. Pollard. "It's harassment, pure and simple harassment," he says.